4 ms·

How about a 'subjectiveness' ranking instead, with notations for "unable to find link to a source of factual claims"? That's the best we could ever safely do, a

by lend000 10y ago

How about a 'subjectiveness' ranking instead, with notations for "unable to find link to a source of factual claims"? That's the best we could ever safely do, and we would likely find interesting results (WaPo might be labeled more subjective than Fox News, for example, even though both would generally have low numbers of notations for 'unable to find link to source of factual claim'). As I said in another post: The only thing you can possibly check for with any reliability is the validity of the base, source event, if there is one. Any higher derivation in the wrong hands (Facebook, for example) is systemic censorship. How can we safely do that? Recursive link tracking, perhaps, to a "primary source," which relies on the AI matching the factual claim to an appropriate source, either a video, image, or text that can be considered the legitimate source based on context (for example, an article about Apple's earnings could link to a primary source of their press release). Regardless, the most dangerous form of "fake news" is by the selection/omission of stories, and that seems pretty impossible to quantify with today's technology (and of course the most prevalent on all of our 'real news' sources).

eplanit 10y ago
> Regardless, the most dangerous form of "fake news" is by the selection/omission of stories This. Very true, and woefully absent from most discussions regarding "fake news".
- zzzcpan 10y ago
  It's even worse, selection of stories is the whole point of news, they exist for the sole purpose of influencing people's opinions. And the fight against "fake news" looks nothing more than the fight for censorship in the space those in power not yet control.
VLM 10y ago
Your arguments are strong, however have you considered an algorithm based on the laziness and cheapness of humans? Consider that a lot of propaganda is heavily coordinated and not creative in the sense of being centrally created and issued. An algorithm could watch, say, 50 sources and see if they simultaneously start using identical phrases, given access to a thesaurus aren't those odds a little unusual? This happened a couple times in the last election. You'd have a much simpler task of quote analysis of course, to exclude directly quoted content. Then factor in something to detect press releases and video news releases where the verbiage of large sections is identical, this strategy is almost too easy. Another factor is "large known propaganda sources" simultaneously releasing the story but small propaganda sources don't operate at all because fundamentally there is a size cutoff. The Wash Post will be in every propaganda operation because they are huge, but the "nowheresville register" certainly will not. Real news would of course be covered by both, so it should be very easy to detect organic self organizing behavior vs small scale conspiratorial behavior. Now algo-proof propaganda could emerge much like handwritten letters to your congressional representative, before being inevitably ignored, are considered more impressive than mere form letters or signing a list. But it would detect at least some fake news based on fake news being part of a coordinated centralized mass produced campaign rather than trying to detect fake news based on its inherent fake-ness itself. Sorta like swatting bugs that bite you or try to, rather than identifying each individual bug then swatting only the mosquitos. Its very difficult to detect if something is a Walmart product, but its easy to detect if its mass produced, if the quality is very low, if it was made in China, if it contains chemicals banned in the USA for safety reasons, and in the long run works just as well.
- lend000 10y ago
  I've been the source of junk news before, and I agree that plagiarism could be a decent metric for identifying quality.
smsm42 10y ago
> How about a 'subjectiveness' ranking instead, with notations for "unable to find link to a source of factual claims"? What would that mean? Let's say I write an article where I claim White House is controlled by reptiloids from planet Nibiru. Would it check that I have any links in my article at all? Or that the links actually prove my claims? Or that these proofs can be trusted (I may just link to my own website or one created by my friend)? I could insert a hundred links to a most respectable austronomy sites to prove that planet Nibiru exists, but how would you know whether these links actually prove it? I could refer to a lot of actual news content as the proof White House occupants can't actually be human. How you evaluate if these links actually support my claim?
- lend000 10y ago
  At the source, you do need some form of verification, similar to "trusted certificates." For example, there could be a database of known mappings, such that apple.com and subdomains are authorized to make statements cited as press releases about Apple, Inc. A link would have to be intelligently interpreted as a citation, perhaps involving a search for similar stories (or it just results in 'unable to find link to primary source' even when it's legitimate, i.e. false positives). Subjectiveness is another area that's quite difficult, but would likely result in percentage of 'unique claims' that the AI was not able to derive from the source material. It's more difficult than just blindly blocking any stories that aren't covered on 'major, trusted sources', and probably only a couple of organizations could implement anything close to this right now, but it's the best we can strive for. All the other 'solutions' I've heard involve censorship of unpopular opinions. Edit: But yes, to the point, my envisioned implementation would not find any referenced sources in your article or through a search, and if it did, those sources would not be authorized to make the claims about the Whitehouse reptiles, so it would get the notation that indicates 'could not verify.' At first, most real news stories would be unable to be verified, but over the time, there would be fewer false negatives. The important thing to recognize, though, is that the notation just means the reader has to make his own judgment; it does not state whether or not it's fake. And "real stories" should also probably have a notation with a direct link to what the algorithm thinks is the base source.
  - 10y ago
23443463453 10y ago
I find it quit ironic considering this discussion, that I just realizes YC shadow bans for things that are countervailing views and perspectives. It precisely encapsulates the very problem with trying to identify anything but the most rudimentary and obvious and deliberate "fake news", that you will inherently impart your bias and your perspective. The problem too, and maybe even the worst part, is that those advancing this "fake news" hunt agenda are the very types who have no self-awareness that would suggest they could at all be trusted to even attempt having an objective perspective. The Stanford Prison Experiment comes to mind in how self-righteous and justified feeling people commit abuses in the name of doing "right" and "good". American free speech is absolute and it is one of the basis of our society's success where others falter and perpetually under-perform us. I know foreigners don't necessarily have an ability to fully appreciate absolute free speech as there is simply no other society that is so principled about free speech (although certain people are trying to curtail freedoms of speech when they don't agree with it), but it is necessary in order to not allow any group, no matter how much they claim they are the "good guys", to control speech. You may not like something someone says, but just because you don't, does not give you the right to censor or stifle or shadow ban their speech as a matter of principle. YC doing so is quite troubling, because it really highlights the fact that the not only feel supremacist in their views, but that they have no regard for people's freedom or liberties. Only approved propaganda may apply. Am I right YC mod goons?

by lend000 10y ago

eplanit 10y ago

> Regardless, the most dangerous form of "fake news" is by the selection/omission of stories This. Very true, and woefully absent from most discussions regarding "fake news".

zzzcpan 10y ago
It's even worse, selection of stories is the whole point of news, they exist for the sole purpose of influencing people's opinions. And the fight against "fake news" looks nothing more than the fight for censorship in the space those in power not yet control.

VLM 10y ago

Your arguments are strong, however have you considered an algorithm based on the laziness and cheapness of humans? Consider that a lot of propaganda is heavily coordinated and not creative in the sense of being centrally created and issued. An algorithm could watch, say, 50 sources and see if they simultaneously start using identical phrases, given access to a thesaurus aren't those odds a little unusual? This happened a couple times in the last election. You'd have a much simpler task of quote analysis of course, to exclude directly quoted content. Then factor in something to detect press releases and video news releases where the verbiage of large sections is identical, this strategy is almost too easy. Another factor is "large known propaganda sources" simultaneously releasing the story but small propaganda sources don't operate at all because fundamentally there is a size cutoff. The Wash Post will be in every propaganda operation because they are huge, but the "nowheresville register" certainly will not. Real news would of course be covered by both, so it should be very easy to detect organic self organizing behavior vs small scale conspiratorial behavior. Now algo-proof propaganda could emerge much like handwritten letters to your congressional representative, before being inevitably ignored, are considered more impressive than mere form letters or signing a list. But it would detect at least some fake news based on fake news being part of a coordinated centralized mass produced campaign rather than trying to detect fake news based on its inherent fake-ness itself. Sorta like swatting bugs that bite you or try to, rather than identifying each individual bug then swatting only the mosquitos. Its very difficult to detect if something is a Walmart product, but its easy to detect if its mass produced, if the quality is very low, if it was made in China, if it contains chemicals banned in the USA for safety reasons, and in the long run works just as well.

lend000 10y ago
I've been the source of junk news before, and I agree that plagiarism could be a decent metric for identifying quality.

smsm42 10y ago

> How about a 'subjectiveness' ranking instead, with notations for "unable to find link to a source of factual claims"? What would that mean? Let's say I write an article where I claim White House is controlled by reptiloids from planet Nibiru. Would it check that I have any links in my article at all? Or that the links actually prove my claims? Or that these proofs can be trusted (I may just link to my own website or one created by my friend)? I could insert a hundred links to a most respectable austronomy sites to prove that planet Nibiru exists, but how would you know whether these links actually prove it? I could refer to a lot of actual news content as the proof White House occupants can't actually be human. How you evaluate if these links actually support my claim?

lend000 10y ago
At the source, you do need some form of verification, similar to "trusted certificates." For example, there could be a database of known mappings, such that apple.com and subdomains are authorized to make statements cited as press releases about Apple, Inc. A link would have to be intelligently interpreted as a citation, perhaps involving a search for similar stories (or it just results in 'unable to find link to primary source' even when it's legitimate, i.e. false positives). Subjectiveness is another area that's quite difficult, but would likely result in percentage of 'unique claims' that the AI was not able to derive from the source material. It's more difficult than just blindly blocking any stories that aren't covered on 'major, trusted sources', and probably only a couple of organizations could implement anything close to this right now, but it's the best we can strive for. All the other 'solutions' I've heard involve censorship of unpopular opinions. Edit: But yes, to the point, my envisioned implementation would not find any referenced sources in your article or through a search, and if it did, those sources would not be authorized to make the claims about the Whitehouse reptiles, so it would get the notation that indicates 'could not verify.' At first, most real news stories would be unable to be verified, but over the time, there would be fewer false negatives. The important thing to recognize, though, is that the notation just means the reader has to make his own judgment; it does not state whether or not it's fake. And "real stories" should also probably have a notation with a direct link to what the algorithm thinks is the base source.
- 10y ago

23443463453 10y ago

I find it quit ironic considering this discussion, that I just realizes YC shadow bans for things that are countervailing views and perspectives. It precisely encapsulates the very problem with trying to identify anything but the most rudimentary and obvious and deliberate "fake news", that you will inherently impart your bias and your perspective. The problem too, and maybe even the worst part, is that those advancing this "fake news" hunt agenda are the very types who have no self-awareness that would suggest they could at all be trusted to even attempt having an objective perspective. The Stanford Prison Experiment comes to mind in how self-righteous and justified feeling people commit abuses in the name of doing "right" and "good". American free speech is absolute and it is one of the basis of our society's success where others falter and perpetually under-perform us. I know foreigners don't necessarily have an ability to fully appreciate absolute free speech as there is simply no other society that is so principled about free speech (although certain people are trying to curtail freedoms of speech when they don't agree with it), but it is necessary in order to not allow any group, no matter how much they claim they are the "good guys", to control speech. You may not like something someone says, but just because you don't, does not give you the right to censor or stifle or shadow ban their speech as a matter of principle. YC doing so is quite troubling, because it really highlights the fact that the not only feel supremacist in their views, but that they have no regard for people's freedom or liberties. Only approved propaganda may apply. Am I right YC mod goons?